525,600 Minutes
by GayApparel
Summary: [PreRENT] Mark's POV. A year in the life... just before RENT starts. How do you measure a year? OneShot.


Disclaimer: As usual, I don't own these awesome characters, but I've got them on loan.

Notes: It's been a while since I posted anything here. This story came to me earlier this evening, and I've spent the last several hours working on it. I felt like Mark was talking to me. It was sad, cuz I even felt his memories. I know, I'm a slacker. I'm lazy, and haven't had much motivation, or inspiration. I will finish them though. And I've even had insiration to start up SASMTO too. So expect an update on that.

Dedicated to my lovely fans first and foremost. Followed by all my awesome friends who've been just the best ever. Yes, that means all of you I know in person, and online. Thanks for everything you guys! Love you all! And lessthanthrees for Madam Disco Kisses.

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**525,600 Minutes**

How do you measure a year? I remember when April came into our lives. She was vibrant, and full of life, and seemed to know how to make Roger do anything she wanted. And he'd oblige her with a smile that left a frown on my face. He never even did that for me. If I asked him to take me out, he'd ask me why, laugh, and go about his business.

But this girl… she had him in a tight grip, and wasn't planning on letting go. They did everything together. She was in to music too, though not quite a musician. She could sing; boy could she sing. She had had operatic training, and had the voice of an angel… at least that was what Roger always said when she sang. He'd play a song for her, and she'd sing it, and the two of them sang together. He rarely sang with me; then again, I didn't exactly have the 'voice of an angel'.

I suppose I was never really what he wanted.

They were together for almost an entire year before she died… well, killed herself, that is, and I've never seen Roger as happy as he was with her. She made him smile; that genuine, beautiful, full-of-life smile that I had only seen when he was on stage performing his heart out, or after our first kiss.

During our first meeting, I just happened to be incredibly drunk, and I don't really remember what happened too much that night, though Roger had informed me I was dancing half-naked on the bar singing "Staying Alive" from the Bee Gees, loudly. I do remember having a terrible hangover that next morning, and the taste of ashes in my mouth. Roger said I was smoking that night too.

But this isn't about me. It's about Roger and April. After that first night, Roger had decided to end it with us. I tried hard to figure out why I wasn't good enough for him. I came up with nothing. He had decided not to tell me about April until she called one night… about three weeks after they met. The fucker.

The phone rang. Speak! "Hey Roger… it's April. You said to call you, so I'm calling you." She giggled, and I rolled my eyes. "Um, so are we still on for Saturday?"

That was when I picked up the phone. "Uh, hi, April?" I started, my voice a tad shaky.

"Roger?" Her voice squealed.

I bit my lower lip, and thought, 'maybe I could pretend to be Roger, and tell her to fuck off, and that he… I mean I wasn't interested in her,' but decided against it. It would only piss Roger off, and lessen my chances to be with him again. So I sighed. "No, this is his…" What should I call myself, was my next thought. "His roommate, Mark."

"Oh, I didn't. No wait… you're that guy from the bar, right? The one who sang the Bee Gees' song?"

Embarrassed, just from the sheer fact that she saw me too, and I had no idea who she was, my face flushed. "Yeah, that's me."

She laughed on the other end. "Cool. Roger's told me stuff about you. Said you guys are like best friends, or whatever."

I laughed nervously. "Yeah… best friends…" I trailed off thinking. _He called me his best friend. Not his lover, not his ex-lover, but his best friend. _I sighed inaudibly. _I guess I could live with that. At least he talks about me._

"So how long have you two been together?" Her question threw me off completely.

I was at a near loss for words. "I- uh- I- what do you mean?" My face… no my entire body had to be scarlet. I had never expected her to ask such a question. What was I supposed to tell her?

"Like, how long have you guys known each other? He never told me that." She giggled again, and I wanted to reach through the phone and strangle her.

"Oh, uh… a long time. Probably about ten years or so." We had been together on and off for about four of those ten years though. Four years. That's a lot of time. How can one person give that up for… for… her?

The rest of the conversation was her asking me questions about Roger that he'd never answer himself. I didn't tell her everything though, and some stuff I even made up, otherwise it would've been embarrassing for Roger.

So they dated for nearly a year…

In that year, I saw him change completely. He went from being the fairly decent, playful asshole, to the fuck-off-if-you-say-anything-fucked-up-about-April-I'll-kick-your-ass asshole. And it wasn't like I was saying anything about her, but whenever I voiced my opinions about her, especially when it was disapproving, he'd get pissed with me. I never won when it came to her. She changed him, and not for the better.

If it weren't for her, he never would have gotten into heavier drugs. I never approved of his smoking marijuana, but Collins did it, and they would normally do it together, so I knew Roger couldn't get into any trouble. But she… she brought home something worse. First she brought home Meth, and he tried it; thankfully he never grew fond of it. Then she brought the cocaine home; he liked it, at first, but decided he'd rather smoke marijuana, or get drunk, because it just wasn't his thing. I was proud of him when he gave that up.

She wasn't too happy about it, and I think he could tell, so when she brought home the final drug, the one that would be their demise. She brought it home, and suggested they just try it. At first, Roger told her no. He had a huge fear of needles, and knew he wouldn't be able to do it. But she offered to do it for him. She would give him his hit first then she'd take one herself. The sad thing is, he agreed with it. All he had to do was close his eyes, feel the prick, and wait. And it only got easier as time went on, since he'd still be coming down from his high as he took the next one, and eventually stopped feeling the needle altogether enough to start doing it himself. He became fearless, but for the wrong reasons.

For three whole months, she'd go out, she'd bring it home, and they'd do it. No questions asked. At least not until the fourth month, Roger became suspicious of her. Said she was cheating on him and actually hit her. I had never seen him act like that before. The drugs were really fucking with him, and all I could do was sit back and watch. I wanted to take him far away from here… from her.

I started researching places I could take him to get him cleaned up. I found a great place that wasn't too expensive, and could take him whenever I could get him down there. Of course the tricky part was getting him to go with me. He rarely left the house anymore. He stopped playing gigs with his band, which ended up dropping him as their lead, and found another guy, but that didn't last long, and they eventually broke up.

I told Roger about the clinic, but he would just laugh at me, and tell me he didn't need rehab, and that he was fine, and didn't have a problem. Then April would tell me to 'chill', and then take him into their room, making the loudest noise possible as if trying to make me jealous. I think somewhere during their relationship, Roger must have told her about us. It wouldn't have surprised me, though. His behaviour completely changed when he was high.

He never stopped playing his guitar though, and even wrote songs, though a bit sloppy lyrically; his words, not mine. He learned how to play a song called Musetta's Waltz because of her too. I still hear that song, but it finally took on a whole new meaning after Roger met Mimi. But that's another story…

So the year was slowly coming to a close. Roger was still shooting up, and still suspicious of his girlfriend, which I found out were understandable suspicions. I saw her, in the alley with some random guy, having sex. They were fucking right outside our building. She never saw me, never knew I saw her, and I never told Roger. I probably should have. That could have been the one… the one person who gave them both their death sentences.

Then Christmas Eve arrived that year.

Maureen and I hadn't been dating for too long at that point, and we were having a big party at the Life that night. It had become sort of a tradition that every year we'd have a party at the Life; it usually preceded one of Maureen's protests. She was always protesting something, whether it'd be the eating of cows, which I was behind her on, though Roger and April both hated that because they both liked hamburgers, or something that could show off her talents as an 'artist.'

Well, this year was no different. Maureen didn't just protest on Christmas Eve, but this was usually her biggest one, and she always drew in some sort of crowd. Of course, this was the year before Benny decided he was better than all of us, and tried to shut the protest down for his own selfish purposes.

After the protest, we all went to the Life to celebrate, and April must have slipped away from us, because when we all left, she had disappeared. I figured it was to go see her other lover, and well, Roger did too, even though he didn't know for sure.

We all headed back home to the loft: Collins, Benny, Roger, Maureen, myself, and we get there, and the entire place was in shambles. Papers strewn across the floor, dishes shattered into a million small pieces, Roger's old radio busted, the couch all torn up like it had been cut open with a knife, or some sort of sharp, phallic object.

Sufficed to say, it had looked like we'd been robbed.

Roger found her first… her body lying on the cold cement floor of the bathroom in her own pool of blood. She had a note crumbled in her hand: "We have AIDS!" How does somebody deal with news like that?

The next year was hell.

For the first six months he continued to use, making it hard for his friends, or his family to get close to him. He pushed me away more than he had ever pushed, only causing me to want to help him even more. I kept in contact with the clinic I had found, asking them how to handle a situation like this, and they guided me through it. They explained the best way to approach him without seeming hostile, how to talk to him without making him feel like I'm condescending him, and how to get him to talk to me, though that didn't help much. He still pushed me away.

He stopped playing his guitar altogether.

He even started stealing money from the remaining roommates of the loft. Benny moved out three months into the New Year, marrying Alison Grey, and moving into his new wife's estate in Westport, and never realized Roger was stealing from him. Collins moved out two months after that, heading off to work at MIT. He knew Roger was stealing from him, but let it slide seeing as how he 'understood' Roger's situation.

Maureen on the other hand never really had a lot of money. I wasn't even really sure she had a job during the time we dated. Roger stole from me though. I had a jar he knew I kept as savings in case we had an emergency, and he found where I had hid it, and cleaned me out. I had at least a hundred dollars in there.

Six months of that year finally passed, and Roger looked worse than ever. He was so thin; I was worried he'd break in half. Hell, he was thinner than I was, and that's saying something. Finally, none of us had any money, and Roger had no other way of getting his drugs. He came to me, distraught, broken, sad, and asked me for my help.

I went to my mom, of all people, to borrow some money. It took a lot of convincing on my part, and telling her nothing of the real reason I needed the money, and she gave me enough to help pay for a six month stay in the clinic. I took him there, his hands, his entire body just shaking badly. I wanted to just take him in my arms, tell him everything was going to be okay, but I couldn't, and I watched them take Roger from me, and place him into one of their rooms.

Another six months without his guitar…

That was the worst year Roger ever had to endure.

December twenty-fourth, nine pm, Eastern Standard Time…


End file.
